


Painting Seamus

by KillianJones32



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Fluff, M/M, Pining, Roommates, Secret Crush, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 05:32:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8877853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillianJones32/pseuds/KillianJones32
Summary: Dean is an artist who hasn’t submitted anything for his portfolio in weeks and he ends up doing a painting of his roommate Seamus who he's had a crush on for over a year.





	

Seamus’s eyebrows dart to his hairline as he stares wide-eyed at his blushing best friend who’s carefully avoiding eye contact with him.

“Wait…you…what?” Seamus asks slowly.

Dean sighs, “I…my portfolio for this term is due next week and…I just have nothing for it. Nothing has been inspiring me much these days. I try to go to the park and draw but I can’t capture the people’s gleaming faces right, I try to sketch the scenery and it doesn’t…it doesn’t come out the way I want it to or I just can’t seem to draw it but…I know you.”

Seamus merely blinks at him.

Dean wraps his arms around himself and tries to quell the sinking feeling in his stomach,

“I’ve known you forever-“

“We only met last year when we started University Dean, after I moved here.”

“Well it’s felt like forever okay?” Dean bites back lightly because it’s true. It’s only been a year and a half and yet Dean feels like he’s known Seamus his whole life. If someone were to tell him that Seamus and he were best friends in a past life, he wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.

“Anyway” Dean continues “I just thought if I could draw you…if you’ll let that is, then it might turn out well because I see you all the time so I know what you look like and how best to draw you but if it makes you uncomfortable or-“

“Dean” Seamus takes two steps forward until he’s standing right in front of him so Dean is forced to look into those gorgeous blue eyes which never fail to cause him to lose his train of thought.

“Of course I don’t mind. Draw me, paint me, do whatever you want with me.” Seamus says and there’s a hint of something more in his tone but Dean is sure that he is simply imagining it. Seamus has a habit of doing that and then pretending nothing ever happened so Dean has learned to ignore it.

“A-are you sure?”

“Absolutely” Seamus grins widely “You want to start now?”

“Well I…okay sure.”

Seamus beams and Dean can’t help but feel shocked by how well Seamus is taking this. I mean sure it’s not like he’s asking him to pose nude or anything but Dean was still expecting Seamus to be a little hesitant.

Seamus sits back down on their couch in their small apartment and tilts his head expectantly at him.

“So…you want to get your paints and stuff? This is the one for the painting assignment isn’t it?”

Dean nods; surprised but strangely glad that Seamus remembered.

“So is it alright if I sit here or…do you want me somewhere else?” Seamus smirks

Dean realised within the first four months of living with Seamus that that quirking smirk would be the death of him and right now is no exception.

Dean coughs in the back of his throat, “No there is fine. Let me just…get everything ready. I’ll be a few minutes.”

Seamus shrugs, kicks his feet up onto the coffee table and picks up the remote,

“No worries, I’ll be here waiting for you when you get back.”

Dean watches dumbfounded as Seamus casually turns the T.V. on and begins flicking through the channels. He stays for a second longer than necessary before retreating into his room and shutting the door.

Leaning his head against the door, Dean desperately tries to gather his bearings.

This shouldn’t be affecting him so much, that damn feeling in his stomach that feels like he’s going to throw up is stronger than ever and he doesn’t know why. Dean’s used to being around Seamus, he’s used to ignoring his feelings for his best friends and he’s definitely used to pretending they don’t exist.

It’s been like that ever since Dean realised that he liked Seamus as more than a friend or roommate about four months after they were assigned to live together on their first day of University last year.

He wasn’t even the one to realise it. It took him going home for Christmas and his sister asking him if this roommate of his that he never shut up about was just a roommate or more for him to catch on to his attraction to Seamus.

Ever since then Dean has struggled over whether to tell Seamus the truth of his feelings but every time he thinks he might Seamus smiles at him or calls his name or just damn breathes and Dean reconsiders.

Because he can’t lose this; he can’t lose Seamus.

Seamus who’s been there for him since that very first day, Seamus who made him a roast dinner and gently convinced him to eat it when Dean found out his father hadn’t run off from his mother but instead he was killed and when Dean felt like he couldn’t move let alone eat, that was just two months after they met and still Seamus held him in his arms all night and didn’t make a single comment when he felt Dean’s tears drop onto his shoulder.

He can’t lose that. Seamus…he means too much to him.

Plus Dean has no idea whether Seamus is into guys or not. In the whole year and five months that they’ve lived together, Seamus hasn’t dated anybody; or at least nobody that Dean is aware of.

Seamus could very well be aromantic for all Dean knew or asexual or just plain straight.

So that’s another reason why Dean won’t tell Seamus how he feels is because he really doesn’t want to make a fool out of himself.

It’s much better for him and for Seamus if he just pretends that his feelings are normal, that they are simply a crush and that they’ll go away soon.

It’s been a year and a month and they still haven’t gone away but there’s still hope yet.

Dean pushes himself off the door and gathers up his paints and his sketchpad. Returning to the sitting room, he doesn’t give Seamus a second glance before dropping his supplies gently on the table before going to the kitchen to retrieve a cup of water for his paintbrush.

By the time he comes back, Seamus has switched the TV off and is watching him with an amused expression.

“Don’t worry Dean I’m very photogenic, I’m sure I’ll be the perfect muse for you to paint.”

Dean snorts, “Perfect muse huh?”

Seamus simply half shrugs and gives him that signature smirk again.

“So how’d you want me?”

Dean pulls a chair over so he can sit across from him, “Emm just like that is fine except…maybe bring your legs over to the couch? And lie down with your head against the armrest.”

Seamus obliges wordlessly, stretching his short legs out on the couch and lying on his back.

Dean sweeps his eyes over the scene, forcing himself to think like an artist and not as a boy watching his gorgeous crush get comfortable.

“Okay wait just a second” Dean goes to his bedroom again and returns later with a pillow which he hands to Seamus.

“For behind your head.” he explains sheepishly

Seamus looks up at him concerned, “Are you sure? Won’t that ruin the picture?” 

Dean smiles, “Your comfort is more important than my bloody painting Shay.”

Seamus’s smile is softer this time, more gentle but Dean doesn’t let himself dwell on it too long before he’s sitting in his seat again.

Seamus readjusts the pillow and Dean asks him to change position so now Seamus lies on his left side, head against the pillow, his mesmerising blue eyes gazing directly at him.

“This alright?” Seamus asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

Dean looks at his roommate, his sandy blonde hair falling just above his long eyelashes, the constellations of freckles on his shoulder that peek out under his Irish Rugby hoodie and how his pale fingers curl up beside his head on the couch and rest against his rosy red cheek.

“Yeah” Dean whispers back “Yeah it’s…it’s perfect.”

Seamus smiles that softer smile again and for a minute they simply look at each other before the spell breaks and Dean begins to work.

He sketches the image first, deliberately leaving the face until last.

He outlines Seamus’s hair, his ear, his cheekbones, down the side of his neck that seems so long in this position.

He gently draws the rises and bumps of the baggy jumper that Dean knows is a size small but it’s still way too big on Seamus, he then quickly draws the skinny black jeans he’s wearing because Dean knows if he spends too long focusing on them then there’d be a possibility of him drooling on his page and in front of Seamus which would not be good.

Finally Dean draws the cute Christmas socks that Seamus’s mother sent over last week before drawing the other side of his body.

This should be difficult, this should be an absolute nightmare, he hasn’t been able to draw properly in months and now he’s drawing his crush?

But it’s not a nightmare at all; in fact it’s pretty much the opposite. Now he has an excuse to look at Seamus. He can freely watch and capture the rise and fall of Seamus’s chest without labelling himself as a creep. He doesn’t have to worry about Seamus suspecting something was wrong, for once he can just sit here, draw and freely look at the boy he cannot have for a while without his negative thoughts getting in the way.

Those eyes were a problem though, part of Dean contemplated asking Seamus to close his eyes, maybe he could portray an image of sleeping Seamus but Dean knew he couldn’t do that. It would be a sin not to at least try and capture those unforgettable eyes on paper.

Half an hour later the image was sketched, Dean made them both a cup of tea (black tea for Dean, milky tea with two spoons of sugar for Seamus) to give Seamus a chance to stretch or move around and for five blissful minutes they sat there in comfortable silence before the painting started.

Dean hasn’t painted outside of class assignments since the summer so he’s nervous when he starts but Seamus’s expression calms him and he keeps his hand steady and just acts on instinct.

He uses a mixture of greys for the socks, he lightens the black for the jeans because he doesn’t want the painting to appear dark and solemn, he spends a lot of time on the jumper, careful not to mix up the dark green with the navy, carefully tracing the words ‘Ireland Rugby, Pride & Glory’ in a distinctive gold.

Then he gets to Seamus’s features and he prays to whatever god exists that he gets this right. He dots the freckles that he can recall from memory onto the neck, cheek and nose, not forgetting the sprinkle of light ones on the back of his hands and knuckles. Dean then spends a good chunk of time on Seamus’s hair, slowly painting the dark blonde strands falling on his forehead and against the pillow.

He doesn’t need to spend a long time painting Seamus’s lips but he wants to. He takes great care in creating his own pink shade of paint because the pink in the box just doesn’t match Seamus’s lips…and this painting needs to be right. Seamus’s lips are chapped as always (he’s got a terrible biting habit that drives Dean insane on the best of days) but Dean decides to edit that with his pencil after he finishes painting.

Dean loses track of time but he knows that more than an hour has passed since he made the cup of tea that is lying on the coffee table, still half full and long since gone cold.

After painting over several things that maybe didn’t need touching up, Dean finally begins painting Seamus’s eyes. They take the longest, Dean’s always been rubbish at painting eyes anyway, they’re so complicated. Noses are surprisingly easy for him, the same with hands, but eyes are the hard part for him so he takes extra care while drawing Seamus’s.

For his part, Seamus doesn’t say a word. In fact Dean is unsure of whether he has ever heard Seamus this quiet before. His breathing has turned deep, his body remained almost entirely still and if his eyes weren’t open and watching Dean as intently as they were, Dean might have thought that Seamus had drifted off to sleep.

Dean sets down his paintbrush gingerly onto a napkin. He looks over the painting for the fifth time, glances up at Seamus then darts his eyes back to the page again.

A second later he speaks, his voice slightly hoarse from not speaking for so long,

“Okay…I think it’s done.”

Seamus’s demeanour shifts dramatically and in a second he’s bounced up from the couch, crossed the room and is standing behind Dean to see himself in the painting.

Dean takes in a sharp breath, nervously waiting for Seamus’s reaction. The later doesn’t speak for a moment and Dean begins to wonder maybe he really has lost his artistic touch after all; perhaps this really was a bad idea.

“Dean…” Seamus’s soft voice calls to him and Dean reluctantly turns around to face him.

“Yeah?”

Seamus’s eyes search Dean’s face for a drawn out moment. Then he reaches out and takes the sketchpad from Dean and lifts it from his hands, bringing it to the desk by the radiator to dry before walking back to Dean, his feet moving so fast that Dean doesn’t have time to ask what Seamus is up to before he’s standing in front of him again.

Dean watches, his mouth half open and his eyebrows drawn together as Seamus searches his face one last time and then suddenly he’s bending down, cupping Dean’s cheek with one of his hands, bringing their faces together until he does the unthinkable and kisses Dean softly on the lips.

There’s a beat.

Dean can hear his heartbeat thumping loudly in his ears, or maybe it’s Seamus’s heartbeat, it’s probably both of theirs beating in sync with each other. 

There’s a pause, Dean doesn’t dare to move and he doesn’t think he could if even if he wanted to.

Seamus’s broken lips feel surprisingly soft against his and Dean can feel the tips of Seamus’s fingers run through locks of his hair.

That’s when Dean loses it.

He bolts from the chair, knocking the Irish boy off balance but catching him by wrapping a firm arm around his waist and drawing his body flush against his.

Seamus looks up at him with wide, panicked eyes as if only now realising what he has done but whatever worries he had get washed away the second Dean kisses him as he instantly reciprocates.

This kiss is better; it’s both of their lips moving in unison, trying to feel as much of each other as they can. It’s not a perfect kiss in the slightest but it’s desperate, Dean pours everything into this kiss. The want, the need, the loneliness, the fear and the utmost love that he’s felt for this boy for over a year; he makes sure Seamus knows how much he wants this.

But the thing that makes it perfect for them, the thing that makes Dean’s heart clench and what makes his body tingle from his fingertips to his toes is that he can feel from the way Seamus is kissing him with the hunger of a starving man that he wants this just as much as Dean does.

They pull apart some time later, probably to breathe but in complete honesty Dean hadn’t even noticed he needed to breathe until they separated and his breath came out in harsh, demanding waves. Seamus pants just as heavily and when they both calm down, Dean notices the worry and fear have returned in Seamus’s beautifully perfect eyes.

Dean swallows hard and hesitantly takes Seamus’s hand in his.

“So…I take it you liked the painting?”

Seamus snorts and nods rapidly, murmuring a quiet, “Yeah” before pressing his lips to Dean’s once more.

Needless to say the A that Dean received on his portfolio wasn’t the best result following that painting by far.


End file.
